ROBBERY AND ARSON.

Otago Witness, Issue 3804, 8 February 1927, Page 4

ROBBERY AND ARSON.

A YOUTH SENTENCED. AUCKLAND, January 31. The youth, Leslie George Dunn, who recently robbed and burned a block of shops at Panmure, appeared before Mr Justice Stringer in the Supreme Court and was sentenced to not more than three years’ detention in the Invercargill Borstal institution. The charges against Dunn were arson, breaking and entering and theft. He was not represented by counsel. “A"iot of this is on the shoulders ot the police,” said the prisoner’s father, who was allowed to address the court. He left home on January 5 to go to his work at Westfield, and did not return. The police caught him in Bell road, Remuera, and instead of holding him, as I asked them to do, they let him go.” His Honor: But there was no ofience. The Father: He had already committed an offence, and they knew it. If they had held him this would not have happened. His Honor remarl ed that there was nothing on record to show that the boy had broken the law at that stage, and the police were nc' entitled to detain hiin. “He seems to be quite out of your control, at any rate,” continued his Honor. “The best thing in the boy’s interests and yours will be to send him to a borstal, institution, where he will have training, discipline. education, and a comfortable home, and will be under restraint. The Father: Yes, sir.